All of these people have their own story, their own travelling schedule, goal and approach and it is fascinating to listen to them and get to know a little bit of their life. We had that already when we started this blog. Taking off a few months of work to travel is nothing radical anymore these days. There are many people around us who do this. But lately we came across a few approaches that actually made me thinking:
There is the German couple which is travelling through Australia for a whole year (nothing exciting), while he is working remotly a 40h-job (ok, requires some organization skills and a Telstra contract) and their 6-year old daughter is learning English by playing with local kids (try to replace that by pre-school). Also we met a Dutch couple who sold their existance at home, took their 2 kids out of school and travel Australia and New Zealand for half a year. The kids surprise them every day with ideas and travel wishes they would have never imagined (Who thought that a 9 year old would rather walk the bushes than playing at the pool? The "Are we there yet"-issue is still there, though). Also we met an Austrian mother who is travelling Australia and Asia for 6 months alone with her (I would guess) 10 year old son (I also guess he is the star when he gets back to class). Or the Swedish couple travelling Australia with 3 kids - 6, 3, and 1,5 years old - checking out all playgrounds on the east coast, preferably those with coffee places next to them.
All say the same - people mostly ask them 2 questions (I admit, I did so too): How? And why?
The "How" requires some preparation, a lot of patience, some money and courage I would say. Not much more.
The "Why" is a different story. Why not? Just because it is not what you usually would do? Just because nobody else (you know) would or did do it? Just because one doesn't travel for 6 months if you have kids at school? Just because it is not sure what will happen to your life or your job when you come back? Just because you don't know what to do with your furniture - and the gym membership that you will for sure use next month for the first time after signing up 1 year ago?
There are a lot of things we think we know how they should be. Are we sure? Have we tried to do them differently? Maybe it is a lot of fun behind that corner! So when was the last time you did something differently (or is it actually different #englishgrammar)?
Back to our travels:
To meet these people is very inspiring and obviously so exciting that we managed to loose 2 cameras in less than a week. The first one remains in peace (and pieces) on Fraser Island - Philipp is still wearing black. The other one tried swimming pool dipping yesterday but didn't turn off its electricity before (stupid thing that is *gg*...). Thank god the memory cards survived so we didn't loose all those wonder- and colorful pictures:
- Translucent Lake Birrabeen on Fraser Island
- Freshwater creek on the 4WD beach
- Nature as architekt
- Bright colored birds
- The first glimpse of the Great Barrier Reef
- And the deep green of the rainforest
